Normandy Blossoms Anew
feel, on drawing nearer, that you have seen
at last a dream come true-as true and tan
gible as the mount's rocky foundation.
We left our car at the base of the lofty
ramparts and walked through the only en
trance. Under the musty walls we followed
our noses to La Mere Poulard, a restaurant
renowned for its omelet.
There are two marvels of the mount: how
medieval Benedictines could possibly have
built the abbey on the summit; and how eggs
and butter cooked over an open wood fire make
the best omelet on earth.
Eggs, Butter, and Kitchen Magic
You can stand right there in the Poulard
kitchen while the whole brown-and-yellow
bundle is born before your eyes (page 602).
First, a youth at a deep copper bowl whips the
eggs so rhythmically you want to jig. Next, a
girl offers him a long-handled skillet sizzling
with melted butter into which he pours the
golden mass. She returns to the chimneyplace,
holding the pan over a low fire. You watch her
every slightest flick, seeking to spot a subtle
clue; but it all seems so elementary until
voild! Your omelet, it is ready.
Swept along in the usual flood of visitors, we
moved up Mont St. Michel's Grande Rue, the
one and only street. It squeezed and twisted
between centuries-old souvenir shops banked
with trivial knickknackery. We passed hotel
porters and restaurant waitresses pleading the
pleasures of their palaces. Then steps, steep
steps, still more steps-662 in all.
Our reward was the crowning glory of the
pinnacle: an architectural miracle of time and
space.* The abbey appears to grow from the
rock as naturally as a tree on a hill. Its slender
spire dwindles into the sword of St. Michael,
whose winged statue soars 500 feet above the
tidal flat.
To build the abbey, monks brought granite
from the outlying Chausey Islands across vo
racious quicksands and through fearsome tides.
They lifted the blocks by brute force to the
top of the rock and put them in place by
hand. Moreover, they chose to lay a founda
tion on the summit's narrow ridge-something
like constructing a chapel upon the peak of
the Washington Monument.
Sheila and I looked dizzily down upon the
antlike activity at the base of the mount.
Fast-traveling clouds gave us the feeling of
flying over a world of sand and sea.
We rambled through the abbey, learning
that one night in 1103 as monks filed out from
prayers the north side of the nave collapsed
in a thunderous avalanche. The solidity of the
present wall comforted us. But suddenly a
roar began to reverberate with increasing in
tensity among the Norman arches.
Our minds flashed back eight centuries.
What we heard, though, was no echo of his
tory. A rapid glance at each other, and we
dashed for the nearest door. Outside we looked
into the distended nostrils of two jet fighters.
The planes zoomed so close it seemed possible
to hit one with our guidebook.
Driving away from the mount, I could not
resist the urge to gaze back and back again
at the acute accent it made on the flat expanse
of sand and sea. We had to stop for a last long
look. Then I felt that Normandy's marvel,
in any phase of sun or moon, rivals India's
Taj Mahal by moonlight or Egypt's pyramids
at sunset.
Medieval Church Surveys a Postwar Town
The saving grace of heavily bombed Nor
mandy is that many of its churches survived.
The Cathedral of Coutances, for example,
came through the war with all buttresses fly
ing, and as prickly as ever with pinnacles.
Yet, from its central tower we looked down
upon a postwar town.
North of Coutances the Cotentin Peninsula
thrusts a stubby finger into the English Chan
nel. Sandy beaches sweep much of the western
shore, but near Cap de la Hague the coast
becomes a rocky waste pounded by ever-rest
less waves. Sea winds lash this austere corner
with grim persistence. Here few others than
fishermen, coast-guard crew, and a lighthouse
family dare to live in an isolated stony huddle.
After the gently congenial aspect of the rest
of the province, gaunt, gnarled, gray La Hague
seems the end of the world.
The rural landscape and farming folk of
his native Cotentin inspired peasant-born Jean
Francois Millet. In the humblest thatched
homes I have seen copies of the paintings that
reflect so faithfully Millet's feeling for French
soil and the toil-bent souls close to it. Besides
the well-known "Angelus," this farmer-artist
painted "Man with the Hoe," "The Sower,"
"The Gleaners" (page 603), "Harvesters
Resting," and other earthy vignettes. Millet
laid down his hoe for the brush, receiving his
first art lessons in Cherbourg.
* See "Mont St. Michel," 22 illustrations in duo
tone, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, May, 1936.
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